Rumour Has It is a wry comedy about a young woman who learns, many years after Mrs Robinson seduced Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, that her dysfunctional family might have been the inspiration for the scandalous book and the hit film.
Unfortunately, this neat premise, spun briskly by screenwriter Ted Griffin, leads to a familiar journey of self-discovery almost totally devoid of laughs.
Were it not for Shirley MacLaine, who doesn't so much chew the scenery as swallow it whole as the acerbic grand dame of the family, Rob Reiner's new picture would be an interminable drag. In her perfectly-coiffed guise as the potential real-life Mrs Robinson, MacLaine slinks through every frame like a wildcat past her prime in search of fresh meat.
Jennifer Aniston, a gifted comic actress in her own right, pales in her co-star's shadow. Her heroine's vacillations barely raise a smile and when she gets round to opening her heart - `I can live without you... I just don't want to!' - the only feeling we have is mild indigestion.
Thirty-something Sarah Huttinger (Aniston), who writes obituaries for The New York Times, has always felt like the outsider in her family.
She struggles to connect with her father and is the polar opposite of perky sister Annie, who is soon to marry. Returning home for the wedding, Sarah relishes the chance to trade quips with feisty gran Katharine (MacLaine).
But in her alcohol-fuelled delirium, Katharine reveals potentially-embarrassing secrets from the past, such as Sarah's mother's dalliance with another man before her wedding.
Stunned Sarah begins to question her own impending marriage, leading to an orchestrated encounter with Beau Burroughs (Kevin Costner), her mother's high school sweetheart.
The film was reportedly beset with all kinds of problems behind the scenes, which may account for the workmanlike finished product.
In their song Mrs Robinson from The Graduate, Simon and Garfunkel croon, `Every way you look at this, you lose'.
